This was the fifth release in the Destiny Of The Doctor arc, created in cooperation with AudioGo for the 50th anniversary.
The Fifth Doctor takes Tegan, Nyssa and Adric to 1920, where he's agreed to meet up with his old friend Harry Houdini. It's one day before Houdini's famous performance in the water tank. Throughout the Doctor's lives (ever since the Ben & Polly days), he's maintained his friendship with Houdini, but never let him into the TARDIS for fear of messing up the timeline.
While Tegan squees over meeting a legend, Nyssa and Adric try to understand the purpose of the old-fashioned fun fair they're in. Houdini's called the Doctor because a local psychic seems to know a lot more than she should. All his life, Houdini's been searching for evidence of the supernatural, asking the Doctor for guidance — but never finding anything that couldn't be explained with science. The Doctor, for his part, refuses to outright tell Houdini if his quest will ever be successful. The psychic in question turns out to have an alien orb in her tent, which promptly starts showing a pre-recorded psychic message by the Eleventh Doctor. Team TARDIS, guarding the tent, is attacked by lions and tigers and bears (oh my!) while the Doctor is distracted by his future self. Adric manages to hide in a boat contraption (using the powers of maths to calculate his chances). Tegan runs away as fast as she can to distract the animals. Nyssa isn't quite as lucky, and ends up in a theatre tent, where she sees... a hologram of the Master (still in her father's body).
The Doctor, meanwhile, gets a Tap on the Head and wakes up shackled by his hands and feet into Houdini's water tank. He quickly figures out that the Master has been hypnotising the entire fair's crew. To his great disappointment, Houdini (who's responsible for knocking the Doctor out) didn't even need the hypnosis, just some convincing. All his life, Houdini had been searching for a way to know if magic is real, hoping to fulfill a promise he made to his now dead mother: to try and find a way to contact her in the afterlife. Since the Doctor knows the future but refuses to tell him, Houdini's gotten more than a bit angry at his friend and decided to trust the Master.
Adric eventually manages to deduce how the Master's projection gadget works (although he still gets captured a bit by him, as usual). Nyssa, with a lot of encouragement from Tegan, manages to break through her pacifist ways and gathers enough mental strength to shake off the Master's mind control. And the Doctor, who's been thrown into the ocean while still shackled into the water tank, reveals that he nicked Houdini's keys at the start of the adventure when he sensed something was very wrong.
In the aftermath, Houdini apologises and accepts that he's not supposed to know the future. The Doctor explains that it wasn't really the Master, just a psychic projection of him through the alien sphere. He gathers up what's left of the Applied Phlebotinum, as per Eleven's instructions, and ends the adventure merrily riding a wooden carousel horse, to his companions' great confusion.
Tropes
- Awesome Anachronistic Apparel: The Doctor is sad to hear his cricket clothing stands out in the 1920's.
- Brainy Specs: The Doctor pulls his out again.
- Call-Back: Tegan mentions the Doctor was supposed to bring her to Heathrow airport.
- Tegan's aunt gets a mention.
- Houdini met the Doctor before, in an earlier incarnation and asks him how the delightful Ms. Grant is doing. Nyssa also mentions the Doctor having changed appearance.
- The Doctor suggests Houdini opens a locked door because he's, ahem, recently lost his sonic screwdriver.
- The "dead planet of Traken gets mentioned.
- The Master suggests he had died.
- Tegan mentions she knows what it feels like being under Mind Control when she urges Nyssa to snap out of it.
- Call-Forward: The Doctor says he doesn't like shadows, because sometimes they have ... teeth.
- Later, a vision tells the Doctor he should forget he ever mentioned the Mast.. oh sorry, spoilers.
- Catchphrase: "I am The Master and you will obey me."
- Compelling Voice: The Master.
- Crappy Carnival: Adric and Nyssa can't experience a human carnival the way human beings can, and find it all superfluous.
- Crystal Ball: The Doctor and Houdini find one. A legit psychic link one.
- Distressed Dude: The Doctor gets captured, which is a bit of a Running Gag for this incarnation.
- Double Take: Tegan ignores the fortune teller until he refers to her aunt.
- Dreaming of Things to Come: After touching the Crystal Ball a second time, the Doctor gets a vision from another person telling him to be careful and not destroy the sphere, and that he remembers "being him".
- Evil Laugh: Of course.
- Fighting from the Inside: Nyssa manages it despite her cultural taboo on showing strength, with a lot of encouragement from Tegan.
- Fighting Your Friend: Houdini, as it turns out, is less than charmed about the Doctor.
- Gas Leak Cover-Up: After the events of the story, the Doctor tells the fair folk that they were part of a new stage experiment, explaining why they have a loss of memory of the past 24 hours.
- Genteel Interbellum Setting
- Hypocrite: Houdini suggests the Doctor is one, because he pries for people's secrets, but keeps his own close to his heart.
- Historical Domain Character: Houdini.
- "I Know You're in There Somewhere" Fight: Tegan towards Nyssa.
- Le Parkour: Adric partakes in some.
- Let's Split Up, Gang!: The Doctor and Harry go into a collection of tents whilst the three companions "stand guard" (because the Doctor thought the real danger was inside)
- The Master: It was The Master the entire time! Hahaha!
- Master of Unlocking: Houdini, of course. But the Doctor as well.
- Mind Control: The Master.
- The Mirror Shows Your True Self: The Master only shows up in projections and reflections.
- Noodle Incident: Houdini has apparently met not just Ben and Polly, but also Jo Grant. And he's seen an alien Crystal Ball 20 years ago.
- The Nth Doctor: Referred to by Houdini.
- Later a person in the Crystal Ball calls him "Number Five!"
- Older Than They Look: Houdini mentions how the Doctor was older than he was, earlier in Houdini's life, but that was an earlier incarnation of the Doctor, as we know.
- Our Ghosts Are Different: The Master.
- Panthera Awesome: The three companions are first beset upon by a tiger, and then by a leopard.
- Power Glows: The Crystal Ball starts glowing a fierce red when The Master's machinations get broken.
- The Power of Friendship: Saves the day.
- Projected Man: Adric thinks The Master is one. When he finds where he should be projecting from, he can't find him, and The Master manages to grab him.
- Psychotic Smirk: The Master.
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Rescued from the Scrappy Heap: Adric moans a bit about a foreign world at first, but then again so does Nyssa. But the moment he, Nyssa and Tegan are confronted by a tiger, he dashes away luring its attention. (Intentionall) - Sherlock Scan: When the Doctor gets knocked out and comes to, he manages to deduce his situation and location in a few glances.
- Squee: Tegan towards Houdini, oh so much.
- Stage Magician: Houdini, obviously, he at one point produces a set of lockpicks without anybody being able to see where they came from.
- Sticky Fingers: The Doctor pickpockets Houdini at one point.
- Title Drop:Houdini: You're just another fraud, hiding behind Smoke and mirrors!
